TV revivals test appeal of cult series

Networks seek to find out if old cult series can compete in the age of social media.

Imagine what it would be like if The X-Files and Twin Peaks had been around in an age of live-tweeting, Snapchats and memes.

The creators of those social media-friendly series will soon find out, because they're bringing them back.

Last week, Fox announced the return of The X-Files for a six-episode run next season, including original cast members David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprising their roles, 13 years after its nine-season TV run ended. Production is set to begin this summer. Showtime has lined up a nine-episode revival of the 1990 ABC murder mystery Twin Peaks for 2016, starring Kyle MacLachlan. And NBC is working on Heroes Reborn, a reboot of its regular-people-as-mutants drama from the mid-2000s, including appearances by a few former cast members such as Masi Oka and Jack Coleman.

Why dig them up now? "This is something (X-Files) executive producers Carter and Frank Spotnitz have been considering since the last movie (in 2008)," says Matt Hurwitz, author of a companion book, The Complete X-Files. "They were considering doing a third film, and it evolved into this short series.

Fan interest in The X-Files has never dwindled. "(They've) always loved the relationship between Mulder and Scully," he says.

Shorter commitments are also a factor in luring back stars. "I can't nor would I be interested in doing a full season," Duchovny told USA TODAY this year. "We're all old, we don't have the energy for a full season."

The Twin Peaks team had also been contemplating a comeback, timed to coincide with murder victim Laura Palmer's vow to "see you again in 25 years." In January, co-creator Mark Frost said, "The idea has been percolating for years. It really caught fire for us about three years ago, when we found the sparks that led us to where the story should go and what we could do with it."

There are new viewers to tap: "X-Files and Twin Peaks can attract two audiences," says Ellen Seiter, a professor of cinematic arts at the University of Southern California: "The Boomers who remember them nostalgically from the original, and the millennials who know they were cult series and see a strong hip factor in these shows."

Like X-Files and Heroes, Twin Peaks lost its spark toward the end of its first run, "but not enough to damage the brand," says Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. "Twin Peaks was an enormous cultural phenomenon and demonstrated that television could play by different rules than we ever thought possible," he says.

"It's dangerous when you remake something that's beloved or that has a very intense following," Thompson says. "You have to walk a very fine line between being true to the original while also breaking out of that mold enough to make something new."

Jack Coleman, whose character was referred to as HRG ("Horn-Rimmed Glasses") will return for "Heroes Reborn," but his TV daughter, Hayden Panettiere, has since moved on to ABC's "Nashville."(Photo: Chris Haston, NBC)

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